Mark Dayton: “I salute my colleague, Senator Kennedy, for his powerful and heroic statements today on behalf of the people of America…”

“I salute my colleague, Senator Kennedy, for his powerful and heroic statements today on behalf of the people of America who do not have the time or the money to come to Washington or hire expensive lobbyists to press their causes in the Senate. He has championed their concerns for decades now. I am very proud to have been a member of his caucus a short while ago, listening to him speak the truth about this legislation, which is a totally one-sided assault on real Americans, the folks we see out there in our States who cannot be here because they are working, because they have earned a decent living, a middle-income living, but they are not getting rich, and they are not taking advantage of programs, but they have suffered the kind of personal misfortunes Senator Kennedy, Senator Durbin, and others have described--serious injuries, illnesses to themselves, to their spouses, or to their children. But they do not have health coverage, or they actually find out now they have health coverage, but the gaps in that coverage are so large or the copayments are so high they run up debts they cannot afford. We can talk about people who lost their jobs and often, therefore, their health coverage, which means they have added economic misfortune on to a health crisis. They are the targets of this legislation, the victims of this legislation. It is self-entitled the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act.”